The Dwight Howard saga as it related to his decision to ultimately choose the Rockets over the Lakers in free agency has been well-chronicled, and it feels like we’ve heard just about all of the details surrounding the reasons for his departure.

In short, Howard didn’t like the way he was being utilized in Mike D’Antoni’s offense, and his personality couldn’t have been more opposite to that of Kobe Bryant, which (along with all of the losing) made his time in Los Angeles extremely miserable.

But if all of that somehow wasn’t clear by now, we have yet another report that Howard may have considered re-upping with the Lakers had they been ready to make the franchise his from day one — by removing those two components that made his time there so unpleasant.

Talks with various people close to the situation make it clear there were two prerequisites for Dwight Howard to remain a Laker: fire Mike D’Antoni and amnesty, or at the very least muzzle, Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers apparently asked Dwight to be patient on both fronts for at least another season, telling him “hey, you’re going to have to gut this out another year,” a source said, although it sounds as if VP of basketball ops Jim Buss isn’t ready to abandon Kobe anytime soon. “Dwight didn’t want to play with Kobe for 2-3 more years,” Buss said. “I’m going to stand behind Kobe because of his history with the franchise.”

It wouldn’t have been that simple, of course, and most believe that Howard’s mind was made up to leave Los Angeles before free agency even began. But either way, the Lakers made the right decision.

Howard has proven to be a game-changer on the defensive end of the floor when healthy, but he has yet to show that he’s capable of being the best player on a championship-winning squad. To be fair, that’s an extremely short list in today’s NBA, and Bryant may be past the point in his career where he’d still fall into that category if he were to be surrounded once again with a deep and talented supporting cast.

What isn’t up for debate, however, is the fact that Bryant is one of the greatest players to ever play the game, and he’s been a part of five championship teams in his 17 years with the Lakers. You simply don’t cut that era short in exchange for chasing a player who doesn’t have anywhere near those credentials.